US Navy scandal: Top official arrested for accepting prostitutes, luxury travel, cash from contractor

A high-ranking US Navy official has been charged with accepting prostitutes, luxury travel and USD 100,000 in cash from a foreign defence contractor in exchange for classified and internal navy information.

US Navy Commander Jose Luis Sanchez, 41, was arrested in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday and made his initial appearance in federal court in the Middle District of Florida yesterday, becoming the third official to be arrested in the scandal.

GDMA executive Alex Wisidagama, 40, of Singapore, has also been charged with participating in a related scheme to overbill the Navy for services provided in ports throughout Southeast Asia.

"As described in the corruption charges unsealed today, senior officials with the United States Navy abused their trusted positions as leaders in our armed forces by peddling favorable treatment - and even classified government information - for their personal benefit," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Maithili Raman.

"In turn, the GDMA executives who illicitly sought information and favors from those Navy officials boasted about their unlawful access to those officials and then traded on the influence that they illegally bought. Day by day, this massive Navy fraud and bribery investigation continues to widen, and as the charges announced today show, we will follow the evidence wherever it takes us," she said.

According to the complaint, Sanchez received bribes in return for sending sensitive US Navy information to Francis, and making recommendations within the Navy to benefit Francis' company, GDMA.

GDMA is a multinational corporation and longtime government contractor based in Singapore, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars of "husbanding" services for the US Navy in at least a dozen countries throughout the Pacific.